Collection of refuse commodities (refuse or recyclables) including organic and recyclable wastes requires efficient collection from commercial, industrial and residential locations. In these environments, numerous bins and containers are often used to accommodate large amounts of waste and recyclable material, and difficulties arise in efficiently emptying all the individual bins and containers into the commodity collection truck.
Commodity collection trucks come in three main types: front end loading, rear end loading, and side loading. In each case, a commodity collection body of one of the three main types is mounted on a truck chassis so that the collection body can be transported on collection routes. Along such routes, individual refuse containers which are compatible with the type of commodity collection body being utilized can be emptied into the collection body and then the collection body can be transported to a transfer site, a recycling center, or to a landfill. In the case of front loading commodity collection bodies, lift arms are provided on the body which pivot about axles near the front lower corners of the collection body from a lowered position forward of the truck's cab to an elevated position above the intake hopper of the collection body. The lift arms include lift forks which can engage and lift a front-load style refuse container equipped with fork pockets to receive the fork tines. However, when a rear end load style container or a side load style container is encountered along a route, a front loading collection truck is unable to empty such a container into its intake hopper. Therefore, a second truck adapted to empty either rear end load containers or side load containers must be sent to empty such container.
In order to save fuel and labor expense, it would be useful for a front loading commodity collection body to be adaptable so that the lift forks could engage a container other than the usual one adapted for front loading, such a container having fork pockets located along opposing sidewalls of the front load style container. A commodity collection truck of the front load style would be very useful if it could engage and empty other than front load style refuse containers. A commodity collection truck equipped with such a collection body would allow a refuse collector to use a single truck to collect various types of commercial refuse containers.